Publications by authors named "Rola Khamisy Farah"

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly strained healthcare systems globally, leading to an overwhelming influx of patients and exacerbating resource limitations. Concurrently, an "infodemic" of misinformation, particularly prevalent in women's health, has emerged. This challenge has been pivotal for healthcare providers, especially gynecologists and obstetricians, in managing pregnant women's health.

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  • A study looked at how well doctors in Israel are trained about gender and sexuality issues in their medical education and work.
  • It found that many doctors feel they haven't received enough training in these areas, even though they believe it's important for helping patients.
  • The research suggests that medical schools should include more content on gender and sexuality to better prepare future doctors.
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Purpose: Sex and Gender-Based Medicine (SGBM) addresses the influence of sex and gender on health and healthcare, emphasizing personalized care. Integrating SGBM into medical education is challenging. This study examines the implementation of an SGBM course in an Israeli university during the first year of the medical school.

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  • Differentiating between sex and gender is essential in the biomedical field, particularly in orthopedics, to improve understanding of musculoskeletal conditions and personalize treatments.
  • The review emphasizes how hormonal differences affect the structure and function of bones and other tissues, with specific examples illustrating the distinct orthopedic issues faced by different sexes, such as higher rates of certain deformities and osteoporosis in women.
  • It calls for improved research practices to include sex and gender disaggregation and to acknowledge the needs of sexual minority and gender-diverse individuals in orthopedic care for better health outcomes.
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  • Syncope accounts for 1-3% of emergency department visits in the U.S. and can indicate serious conditions like strokes or tumors, leading to frequent head CT scans for diagnosis.
  • A study involving 360 patients revealed that only 11.4% had new findings from head CT scans, with no significant differences between men and women.
  • The results suggest that age is a more important factor than head CT in diagnosing syncope, indicating these scans should not be done routinely without specific medical reasons.
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Background: The cavum septi pellucidi (CSP) is a brain-enclosed cavity located on the midline between the two leaflets of the septum pellucidum that separates the lateral ventricles. This structure develops in the fetus from week 18 and can be seen up to week 37 in almost all cases and then begins to disappear.

Objectives: To measure and determine the normative values of the CSP volume in fetuses between 20 to 40 weeks of gestation.

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  • - The 2022-2023 Mpox outbreak predominantly affected cisgender men, particularly those engaging in sex with men, prompting a thorough investigation into infections in women, who were less frequently impacted.
  • - The review systematically analyzes studies from various countries, focusing on clinical aspects, epidemiology, psychological effects, and the unique patterns of Mpox among women, especially pregnant women and those with health issues.
  • - Findings indicate differences in transmission routes and clinical manifestations between genders, with notable case studies highlighting the need for targeted research and surveillance to understand Mpox dynamics in diverse populations, including women.
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Background: This study examines how the neutrophil-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) predicts coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) hospitalization, severity, length, and mortality in adult patients.

Methods: A study was done using a retrospective, single-center, observational design. A total of 400 patients who were admitted to the Ziv Medical Center (Safed, Israel) from April 2020 to December 2021 with a confirmed diagnosis of COVID-19 through RT-PCR testing were included in the analysis.

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Importance: Uterine rupture is defined as a nonsurgical disruption of all layers of the uterus. Most ruptures occur in the presence of a scar, usually secondary to a previous cesarean delivery. Rupture of an unscarred uterus is rare and is associated with severe maternal and neonatal outcomes.

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Whether human sexuality is the result of nature or nurture (or their complex interplay) represents a hot, often ideologically driven, and highly polarized debate with political and social ramifications, and with varying, conflicting findings reported in the literature. A number of heritability and behavioral genetics studies, including pedigree-based investigations, have hypothesized inheritance patterns of human sexual behaviors. On the other hand, in most twin, adoption, and nuclear family studies, it was not possible to disentangle between underlying genetic and shared environmental sources.

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  • Human papillomavirus (HPV) is a prevalent STI affecting a significant proportion of sexually active females, with preventive measures including vaccination and cervical screening.
  • A study was conducted among 565 Israeli nurses to assess their knowledge, attitudes, and practices regarding HPV and its prevention, revealing that a low percentage were vaccinated and many lacked awareness about HPV-related issues.
  • The results indicated that nurses were knowledgeable about cervical cancer prevention strategies but displayed misconceptions about HPV's impact and statistics related to sexual activity in adolescents.
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In several countries, no gender identity- and sexual orientation-related data is routinely collected, if not for specific health or administrative/social purposes. Implementing and ensuring equitable and inclusive socio-demographic data collection is of paramount importance, given that the LGBTI community suffers from a disproportionate burden in terms of both communicable and non-communicable diseases. To the best of the authors' knowledge, there exists no systematic review addressing the methods that can be implemented in capturing gender identity- and sexual orientation-related data in the healthcare sector.

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HIV/AIDS still imposes a high epidemiological and societal burden. Together with antiretroviral therapy, pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) represents a fundamental tool in the fight against HIV/AIDS. PrEP is considered effective and safe, even though it may affect organs like the kidney, bone, and liver, as shown by randomized clinical trials (RCTs).

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  • * A study analyzed 124 cases across several countries and found the majority of cases are in young males, with sexual transmission likely playing a significant role, alongside atypical symptoms mostly affecting the genital and anal areas.
  • * Common symptoms include fever, inguinal lymphadenopathy, and rashes, while risk factors point to risky sexual behaviors, especially among men who have sex with men, though being virally suppressed may offer some protection.
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Sex and gender are concepts that are often misunderstood and misused, being utilized in a biased, preconceived, interchangeable way. Sex and gender medicine is generally overlooked, despite the profound impact of sex and gender on health outcomes. The aims of the present rapid systematic literature review were (i) to assess the extent to which sex- and gender-sensitive topics are covered in medical courses; (ii) to assess the need for and willingness toward integrating/incorporating sex and gender medicine into health-related education; (iii) to identify barriers and facilitators of the process of implementation of sex and gender medicine in medical teaching, mentoring, and training; and (iv) to evaluate the effectiveness of interventional projects targeting curriculum building and improvement for future gender-sensitive physicians.

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Background: Fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) is a chronic disorder characterized by widespread musculoskeletal pain accompanied by various additional symptoms. The prevalence of FMS ranges between 2-8% of the population. The exact pathophysiology of the disease remains unknown, and under certain circumstances it is difficult for the physician to diagnose.

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Endometrial cancer (EC) is currently the most common malignancy of the female genital tract in developed countries. Although it is more common in postmenopausal women, it may affect up to 25% in the premenopausal age and 3-5% under the age of 40 years. Furthermore, in the last decades a significant shift to pregnancy at older maternal ages, particularly in resource-rich countries, has been observed.

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  • Tocilizumab, an anti-IL-6 therapy, is commonly used to treat "cytokine storms" in COVID-19, but its effectiveness and safety alongside corticosteroids remain unclear, based on early studies.
  • A systematic review and meta-analysis of 39 studies involving 15,531 patients showed mixed results for tocilizumab's effectiveness in reducing mortality, need for mechanical ventilation, and ICU admissions, especially when used with corticosteroids.
  • While adjusted results indicated tocilizumab could lower mortality and ICU admission rates, its use was also associated with a higher risk of infections, highlighting the need for cautious use.
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Medical education refers to education and training delivered to medical students in order to become a practitioner. In recent decades, medicine has been radically transformed by scientific and computational/digital advances-including the introduction of new information and communication technologies, the discovery of DNA, and the birth of genomics and post-genomics super-specialties (transcriptomics, proteomics, interactomics, and metabolomics/metabonomics, among others)-which contribute to the generation of an unprecedented amount of data, so-called 'big data'. While these are well-studied in fields such as medical research and methodology, translational medicine, and clinical practice, they remain overlooked and understudied in the field of medical education.

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